


Because I'm Not

by orphan_account



Series: I Will Be Here [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Sickness, a dream au in which neumer is canon, also i just ship these two way way too hard, i just really wanted sick!chris ok, it's just shameless neumer trash i'm sO SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is never sick. Ever. Especially not when Manu is around. And even if he is sick, it's never with something that would require him to be taken care of, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because I'm Not

**Author's Note:**

> i have sinned oh god
> 
> SIKE, I'm still writing this. Yes, it still exists. Deal with it. I hope it's not too trashy. But, you never know. As is the case with most of my shameless fics casually chilling in my drafts right now.
> 
> i'm always a slut for fluffy one-shots with lots of sickness and angst tbh

Chris only clears his throat a little, but it's for this reason that he has to make another light cough that leads to Manuel putting down the magazine he's flipping through and take a good look at him.

"What?" He tries to fake the most innocent look he can. 

Manuel narrows his eyes. "Are you getting sick?"

He can probably hear the pounding in Chris's head, but Chris smiles and lies. "Of course not." He shrugs innocently. "Why do you say that?"

"You just sound a little sick, that's all," Manuel says disbelievingly, picking up the magazine again. It's only there for a split second before he folds it and tosses it on the table again. "Chris, look at me."

He's onto him, Chris knows. "I'm fine," he lies as Manuel's eyes shift over his face. "Really."

"No, you're not," Manuel says slowly. He leans forward and reaches a hand out, cupping Chris's cheek in his palm for a moment. "Your skin is warm, and you look flushed."

A nervous laugh. "I'm fine."

"I'll believe that if you can prove you don't have a fever."

"Fine." Chris gets up to go dig out the thermometer from the recesses of the apartment. God knows where it is. It takes him five minutes to find it. He rinses his mouth out with cold water before going out to the kitchen again, when Manuel raises his eyebrows at him over the top of his magazine. 

"Under your tongue," he says, wielding the thermometer at Chris. 

Chris waits, holding the thermometer under his tongue (not like he has a choice, Manuel is holding it firmly in place, so it's not like he can move it around), going almost cross-eyed as he watches the display and prays that it doesn't pass body temperature. With a tiny beeping sound, it betrays him and shows Manuel a 99.5 degree temperature.

"You're sick," Manuel announces triumphantly, washing off the thermometer and giving Chris a knowing look. 

"It's probably just a flu," Chris says, trying to appease Manuel.

"We'll see about that," Manuel says skeptically. "I'm making dinner tonight, though. And no kissing tonight, either."

• • •

Two days later, Chris wakes up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and shivering. He tries to get up to go to the bathroom, but as soon as he's out of bed it's like his muscles stop working and he almost falls to the floor. As it is, he grabs onto the sheets and yanks them off Manuel, who sits up and finds Chris shaking and his shirt soaked. 

"You okay?" Manuel asks automatically, switching on the lights and throwing the sheets off. He crosses around to the other side of the bed and helps Chris back up with a lot of effort; they're the same height, but Chris seems a lot weaker than he actually looks. "You're burning."

Chris sinks back into the pillow and closes his eyes, but Manuel shakes him gently a moment later to slide the thermometer under his tongue. Without the cold water, the display beeps at 101.3 degrees. His heart is throbbing, his head is pounding, and his throat tightens every time he swallows. His muscles ache, worse than any training Jogi or Schmidt has ever put them through. He can't even lift his head. And he's freezing, but sweat sticks his shirt to his chest. 

Manuel lays the back of his hand on Chris's forehead. "Hey, Chris. Sit up. I don't want you choking on mucus."

"I'm not even coughing," Chris protests. His voice is a dry whisper. He moves his arms to raise himself on his elbows, but even that requires a tremendous amount of effort that he can't actually afford, and Manuel has left the room, so he's just left to lie there pathetically, feeling out-of-breath and like the world is spinning.

Manuel returns a moment later with a fresh shirt and a mug, and he rubs little circles on Chris's chest until Chris stops shivering and rubs his arms up and down to warm them up, and then he peels off his shirt and wipes off the sweat with a damp towel and changes him like a little kid, and then he holds Chris's head up while making him sip from the mug of lukewarm water, and he props up the pillows a bit and smooths Chris's hair back from his forehead and Chris can't believe he let himself get sick, because this is going to ruin him.

• • •

The next morning is not much better. He's so fatigued he can't even move, and he's trapped in a constant state of chills. Manuel is trying his best to bring his fever down with a cocktail of Advil and Tylenol and chicken soup, but Chris isn't hungry. Everything aches. The world is spinning. When he opens his eyes, all he wants to do is close them. He can't swallow, and his head is still pounding. 

There's a sort of swell in his gut though, a good surge of nervousness. The sensation of Manuel being so worried about him, taking care of him, is something Chris doesn't lose to his dreams. Every time he feels Manuel's big hands on his face - cupping his cheek, rubbing his thumb against his face, the back of his hand on his forehead - or his palm on the back of his neck, lifting his head for him so he can drink water, Chris's stomach flips, and not in a nauseous way. Manuel gently tucking the covers in around his shoulders every time Chris starts to shiver again. Changing his shirt for him and wiping away the sweat. 

Chris sleeps through most of the day. He only wakes up in the afternoon to go to the bathroom, and Manuel's not there, so he does his best to drag himself out of bed and stand. It works until he lets go of the doorframe, and then he loses balance and collapses on the ground, summoning Manuel, who flies to Chris's aid when he sees Chris slumped over the tile floor of the bathroom. 

"Chris," Manuel says, helping Chris upright and leaning him against the doorframe. He presses his palm to Chris's face. It's burning, still. "This isn't normal."

"I'm okay," Chris says. 

Manuel doesn't believe him. It's obvious that he doesn't. But he helps Chris to the bathroom anyway, and when Chris is back in bed, he rubs his back and lays Chris back on the pillows to sleep again.

• • •

Chris wakes in the middle of the night with a sudden jolt of pain in his stomach that subsides into a dull throb. Manuel is sleeping next to him, laying on his side with his hand resting on Chris's chest. As soon as he tries to sit up, Manuel's hand falls and he sits up, too.

"Chris?" he asks, groggily, turning on the light. "Are you okay?"

Chris feels bad for doing this. For making so much work for Manuel. Why is he even sick? Why is Manuel taking care of him? He wants to ask, but Manuel slides the thermometer back under his tongue and tests his forehead, rubbing his hairline with the ridge of his palm. He pushes a stray strand of hair off his face. Takes out the thermometer, tries to hide the look of alarm when he reads the display, rubs Chris's chest in soothing circles, changes his shirt and wipes away the sweat beading on his face. Manuel lifts Chris's head to drink from the cup of water, but Chris won't open his eyes.

A feeling of panic rises in Manuel's throat, but he clears it away. It's nothing he hasn't experienced before. Maybe Chris is just extraordinarily tired. He kisses his forehead and makes a mental note to call the doctor in the morning.

They never make it to morning, though. Chris wakes in the early hours of the morning again, at half-three, gasping for air and whimpering. Manuel hasn't even fallen asleep from the last time he was woken up; he catches Chris's shaking wrists in his hands and feels the dry skin.

"Are you okay?" Manuel has to repeat the words a few times before Chris nods. His eyes are glassy and unfocused. "Chris, look at me."

His eyes settle on some part of his face, to his credit, but something is very obviously wrong with Chris. 

"Alright," Manuel sighs, getting out of bed. "We're going to the hospital."

Chris tries to protest. "I'm okay," he says, struggling to sit up and prove that he really is okay.

Manuel fixes him with a don't-shit-me glare. "Remember the final?" he says. "Because you look exactly like you did then."

"That's not true," Chris argues weakly.

"Look at me, then," Manuel says, helping Chris into a sitting position. 

Pain stabs through his left side, but Chris hides the wince and tries his best to look at Manu, lifting his hands slowly to rest on the structured face. It takes an incredible amount of effort and leaves him breathless, but Manuel relaxes a little and decides that okay, maybe Chris isn't actually that bad, and maybe he's just tired and this is just a nasty flu bug. He presses his lips to Christoph's forehead, just below the hairline, and rubs his knuckles against the nape of his neck. 

"Okay," Manuel says, sighing. "I believe you. You're okay. But if your fever's not better by the end of tomorrow, I'm taking you to the hospital. This isn't normal."

Chris agrees. He knows he'll be okay. He'll be fine by then.

• • •

Chris is relieved when the sore throat and headache cease the next day, and Manuel is satisfied with the improved temperature (he's really not, but Chris convinces him that half a degree is a sizable improvement and a good sign). He has a better appetite and eats the chicken soup that Manuel feeds him. No, it's not the appetite. His appetite is still the same. But he wants that flip of his gut again, and he gets it. Manuel sits on the bed with him, holding the bowl in one hand and the spoon in the other, feeding Chris tiny sips of the soup. And everything in-between - everything in-between is what Chris lives for. The sensation of tingling along his spine every time Manuel drops the spoon into the bowl and places his big hands on his back, rubbing it up and down; the tickle of his skin every time Manuel reaches up to his face and cups his cheek in one hand, rubbing at his temples gently with his thumb; the breathlessness that accompanies his slight smile whenever Manuel uses his fingers to wipe soup drips off Chris's cheek - every little thrill that Chris wants to devour, and he wishes he wasn't sick because then Manu would be kissing him and they'd be cuddling and everything would be ten times better. 

It does get better. It gets slowly better, he feels less and less tired and then a week after Manuel first took his temperature, he can sit up on his own (but he lets Manu help him, because the feeling of his hands on his back - Chris could just melt into that). But the pain in his side gets worse and worse over those two and a half days, until even though he can sit up, Chris finds himself hunched over. 

The sore throat and headaches - yes, they're gone - but in their place is now a stabbing pain in his side, and he can't get rid of it, and now he's feeling a breathlessness that's definitely not from Manuel kissing his forehead. He doesn't want to tell Manuel, but this issue comes to a head when he wakes up in the middle of the night with aching muscles again, and he can barely crawl to the bathroom to throw up.

Manuel finds him, he does. He turns on the light and drops to his knees when he sees Christoph there, shaking on the tile floor. His arms wrap protectively around Chris's torso and he helps him to the sink to wash his face. 

"Hey, Chris, stand up a bit. I have to wash your face."

"I can't," Chris gasps, sliding to the ground against the sink. "It hurts."

Alarm and panic mix together in Manuel's eyes, making them the sharpest Chris has ever seen. They're practically seeing through his soul. "Chris, are you okay? Look at me, Chris." He has to tap Chris's face more than once to get him to open his eyes again, and they're all cloudy again. "Chris, can you understand me?"

His head lolls to the side and his grip on Manuel's fingers loosen. Manu feels tears welling up in his eyes from all the panic, can feel his chest constrict, but he's not sick, it's Chris, Chris, lying against the sink and not responding to any of Manuel's words, Chris, not there.

Manuel picks up the phone and dials the ambulance.

• • •

The hospital is waking up again as Chris is brought back to his room.

Manuel doesn't want to think about how he looks right now. Caught off-guard. Maybe angry. Tired. Hopefully not like he's been crying, but of course that's what he looks like. Why wouldn't it be?

"He had a third-degree hematoma in his spleen, which probably happened when it was still enlarged from the bout of mono," the doctor says, stringing together a list of technical terms Manuel could honestly care less about. He watches the doctor's lips move, and when they stop, he sits up again.

"So he'll be okay?" he whispers?

"Probably."

A feeling of relief washes over Manu, the hand around his heart releases its grip. He looks over at Chris, listens to the rasp of his breathing through the oxygen mask, realizes that Chris is still alive.

_Still alive._

His eyes confirm it, when Chris opens them, all crusted with drugged sleep and God knows what else. They search the unfamiliar ceiling before them for a moment, and then they land on Manuel, elbows on knees, rocking back and forth in the plastic chair, and they smile a little. 

The mask doesn't let him talk. Chris finds that out when he ends up coughing into the mask, bringing back a sharp pain to the left of his stomach. He lifts his hands, heavy with intravenous tubes and pulse oxymeters, to his face to lift the mask, but Manuel is there, catching his wrists again and pressing the mask to Chris's face, an unspoken _I love you_ making its way between the two. 

"You almost died," Manuel whispers fiercely, stroking Chris's hair, the other hand laced around Chris's fingers. "If I didn't call an ambulance, you would have died. I should have taken you here when I first said I would."

Chris's eyes say sorry. Manu smiles dumbly. Chris is forgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> hONESTLY I have no idea what drugs I was on while writing this I just really wanted to do a sick fic and I'm so sorry idk what that ending was -


End file.
